Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, we keep hearing reference to the word responsibility. We must have responsibility, and the SAFETY Act, the provision included in the en bloc amendment, the manager's amendment, makes the wrong-doers responsible. This indemnification amendment makes the taxpayers responsible. Responsibility is very important, but we cannot make the taxpayers of this country responsible for everything that goes wrong. We do not even know how much this will cost. Proponents did not even ask for a cost estimate. All we know is that the Congressional Budget Office tells us that it will cost a lot over a period of 5 years. We should find out how much this will cost before we proceed by adopting this amendment. Mr. Chairman, the SAFETY Act does not provide immunity from lawsuits, it simply provides that products approved by the Federal Government for use in homeland security, and deployed in cooperation with customers other than the Federal Government in order to save lives, should be allowed the benefit of the existing government contractor defense. We already know that this works. It is already in law. Under these provisions, any person or entity who engages in criminal or terrorist acts, including corporate crimes such as consumer fraud and government contract fraud, they are denied the protections. They do not get them. The Democrats cannot have it both ways.”